μᾶζα

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /mâːz.da/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈma.za/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈma.za/^[1]

Forms

μᾶζᾰ (mâza) f (genitive μᾱ́ζης); first declension^[1] Megarian μᾶδδα (in Aristophanes); later μάζα.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Ancient Greek μάσσω (mássō, “to knead”) + -ια (-ia), from the stem ⟨μαγ-⟩ of the aorist μαγῆναι (magênai).^[2][1] Archilochus' phrase “a kneaded μᾶζα” shows the link.^[2] The long ⟨ᾱ⟩ would then be secondary; but a comparison with a Slavic verb “to smear” points to Proto-Indo-European *meh₂ǵ- (“to knead”), and then it may be an old full grade.^[2][1]

Beekes rejects a Semitic origin: the Hebrew word for unleavened bread is rather taken from Greek.^[2] Latin borrowed massa (“lump, mass”) from it.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Hesiod's Works and Days mentions a cake made with milk.^[4] The barley cake was kneaded from roasted barley meal mixed with water, milk, wine or oil and eaten without baking, the food of poor people, unlike ἄρτος (ártos), wheaten bread baked in an oven.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Archilochus, Herodotus, Aristophanes and the Hippocratic writers use it for the barley cake, often in contrast with wheaten bread; in Aeschylus, “to get the bread of slavery” is to become a slave.^[4][3] From the Septuagint on it also means a lump or mass, as of gold in Josephus, and in alchemy an amalgam.^[4][2]

Through Latin massa and French it came back into Modern Greek as μάζα (máza) “mass”, in physics and in general use; the old sense “barley bread” survives too.^[5]

Timeline

• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod mentions a cake made with milk.^[4]
• 7th century BC – Archilochus speaks of a kneaded barley cake.^[4][2]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for barley cake.^[4][3]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes gives the Megarian form μᾶδδα.^[2][3]
• 1st century AD – Josephus uses it for a lump of gold.^[4]
• Modern Greek – Modern Greek μάζα (máza) means “mass”, after French.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A barley cake, kneaded and eaten unbaked.^[4][3]
2. A lump, mass, ball.^[4][2]
3. (alchemy) An amalgam.^[4]

Word family

• μαζονόμος (mazonómos)
• μαζίσκη (mazískē)

Related words

• μάσσω (mássō)
• Latin massa

Usage notes

A proverb said that “even barley cake is good after bread”, of making do with second best.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ a b c d e f Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki